A much-changed Spurs side, Pochettino swapped eight players, were never really troubled by an equally unfamiliar Foxes line-up as they finally got the better of Claudio Ranieri’s men this season at the fourth time of asking – reaching the fourth round with a 2-0 victory.

Having drawn 2-2 in the original tie and with Leicester winning the Premier League meeting in north London last week, Tottenham triumphed in the final part of the 10-day trilogy courtesy of goals from Son Heung-min and Nacer Chadli at the King Power Stadium – the scene of a 1-1 draw in the league in August.

Spurs, fourth in the Premier League and just five points behind leaders Arsenal, will travel to League One strugglers Colchester in the next round at the end of the month before resuming their Europa League challenge against Fiorentina in February.

Pochettino said: “I am very pleased with the performance, it was a fantastic victory against a very good team. We dominated the game from the beginning to the end.

“The FA Cup is an important competition for us and we showed we have a squad that is good enough to compete in every competition.

“We have also the Premier League and Europa League and I think it is very important to keep the squad fit and working hard, and the FA Cup is very important for this. We are having a fantastic season, we are at a fantastic level.

“It is difficult to be fair to players but there is fantastic spirit in the changing room and in the training ground.

“I don’t like to speak about change. For me, when you have 24 or 25 players they all work very hard and some players deserve to play and can’t – you can only pick 11 and seven on the bench.”